Ever After
by lankypanky
Summary: Scott and Lauren try to figure out life together.  Spoilers, obviously.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is not in any way an ending that could have been achievable by the end of the game, but I sort of think it should be. I'll try to make it clear over the course of the story what would have needed to happen in order to make this possible, but it might get a tad awkward/crammed.

* * *

Scott Shelby swung lazily upright, the bedsprings creaking beneath him. It was a late, lazy Saturday morning, the light falling through the blinds into yellow stripes across the bed.

"Hey," he said, twisting backwards to look at the woman curled up behind him on the bed, her back to him. She didn't move, and he wrapped one large hand around her hip, squeezing her through the blanket. "Hey, Lauren."

She only grumbled at him, curling up tighter.

"Come on, babe," he said, and shook her hard, playfully. She smacked at his hand – he kept it there – pulled the pillow over her head, then gave up pretending she could remain asleep.

"What?" she said.

"Do you want breakfast?"

"Depends. Are you going to burn it?" She was beginning to stretch, lazily, under his hand.

"Well, I could make cereal," he said, thoughtfully. "I can't burn cereal." He shifted to rest his palm against the bed as she brought her head out, rolling onto her back to squint up at him.

"You're telling me," she started slowly, "That you woke me up and asked me if I wanted breakfast, so that I could make you breakfast."

"Yeah, well," he smiled shyly at her. He was ready for it when it came, but he still flinched when the pillow nailed him in the spine.

"That means I get the bathroom first," she announced, and slipped out of bed, draped in one of his ancient t-shirts, to make good on her promise. He watched her go, still smiling fondly at the now-familiar roll of her hips underneath. Their time together had already filled so completely with a thousand small habits – the mock fights over the cooking, over how to squeeze the toothpaste, the slow inevitabilities of their evenings in together on the sofa, the way they let each other keep their private sorrows.

He never asked about all the men who had come before, her clients, or the grief that surrounded the death of her son. He didn't need to know, though he swore privately that he'd listen if she ever needed to tell him. She reciprocally let him dwell shyly in his own past, in the webs of secrecy around his work. Their being together was comfortable, soft, familiarly close, like the old shirts of his that Lauren wore to bed.

He stepped wordlessly into the bathroom after she was done, not bothering to shower. It was good enough, right now, to simply wash his face, shave. By the time he'd emerged, she'd put together a better breakfast than he ever would have on his own – cereal, fruit, yogurt.

"Dang," he said, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen. "That? That looks delicious. And you didn't even burn it."

She scowled at him, and he relished the transformation of her gorgeous face as he dragged out one of the kitchen chairs. She joined him, peeling apart an orange.

She always would have been a pretty woman, he thought. But her sorrow had made her beautiful. The sad lines that grief had formed on her face gave her a kind of regality.

"I forgot to ask you last night," he started, cautiously. "How's the job hunt going?"

She shook her head and looked at him miserably. "It's not."

"Hey," he said, and leaned over to tuck her hair behind her ear with one set of thick fingers. "Give it time."

"I've _given_ it time." She sounded upset, and now Scott was sorry he'd brought it up. He knew she'd looked terribly hard for weeks. Lately, her searches had become more haphazard, but he could hardly blame her. She wasn't stupid, but she had very little education. She was diligent, but had no employment record of any kind. And she had a moral sense more passionate than his own, but an arrest record that set off warning bells to any potential employer who bothered to scratch the surface of her background. Getting turned down for absolutely everything she applied to was starting to wear her down, and he could tell.

"Lauren, relax. You know it's okay. Something will come up. I just want you to be happy. We can get by on what I make. You could spend all day at the movies for all I care."

She grabbed his hand, the one still touching her hair, and pressed it against the side of her face. "I know. It's just so hard. It's like being told how worthless you are, over and over again. That's what I was trying to leave behind."

"You shouldn't ever hear that," he said, and freed his hand from her grip. He used it now to grasp her chin gently and turn her face towards his own. "You ever hear that, you come talk to me. You're worth about a thousand of the people I talk to every day, and I'll tell you that as long as you don't know it yet."

"You don't count," she said. He made his mean face and grabbed her leg just above the knee, squeezing it hard in a pincer grip. She squealed.

"Dare you to say that again," he snarled, and as she squirmed to work her way out of his grasp, he grabbed her hard around the waist, wrestled her on to as much of his knee as peeked out under his belly. "I got ways of making you listen to reason."

She was laughing helplessly, and wrapped both arms around his neck as she readjusted her weight across his lap. "I'll be good. I'll go to the movies, even."

"You'd better, miss." He pressed his face into her shoulder until she turned to him and kissed his forehead.

She leaned lazily against him, moving one foot on the floor as she eased her way off his legs. "What do you want to do today?" she asked. "We've got a whole weekend, sort of. We did the zoo last time, right?"

"Oh, babe." He gave her an apologetic squeeze. "I gotta work today."

Her face fell a little. "Oh, Scott. Do you _have _to?"

"You know I'd rather spend it with you. It won't be an overnight, promise. You know what? We _should_ go to the movies." He kissed her lightly on the cheekbone. "You pick one, you're good at that. Plan to go after eight. I'll eat beforehand. You should too, Twiggy. We'll meet back here first. If I'm going to be too late, I'll call. Okay?" She hesitated, and he grappled her in a bear hug until she gasped, giggling.

"O_kay_, Scott. But you have to pretend to like whatever I pick."

"I won't have to pretend, because you'll be there." She flushed, and he let her flee his lap. She disappeared into the bedroom, hips swinging, and he returned contentedly to his breakfast. They were half old married couple and half junior high, still figuring out where they fit together, still courting.

* * *

**A/N:** Think I'm going to reorganize the rest of this. I know, it's a really short first chapter. I'll probably lengthen it at some point. I sort of just need to publish it so that I'm motivated to fix up the rest of it.


	2. Chapter 2

They cruised lazily into getting dressed, and she followed him to the front door.

"Scott?" she asked suddenly, then hesitated.

"What's up, babe?"

"You're not still doing that Origami Killer work, are you?" She showed a little strain on her face as she asked. "I'm not asking which parents hired you, I know you can't answer. But you're not still working that case, right?"

He was intensely startled, had thought for a brief second that she was asking whether he was still taking the boys. "Not at the moment," he said, skirting the truth.

"I just really want to leave all that behind. I mean, thanks for not talking about it. But I'd feel better if I knew you weren't still investigating. That terrible man is dead, anyway. I want this . . . I want us . . . to be all about the future."

"Well, exactly." He jumped at the opening she'd given him. "There haven't been any murders since Ethan Mars died. It's probably all over. Nothing to investigate."

"Thank you, Scott." That look on her face, her grieving motherhood, was the one that was so beautiful it nearly broke his heart. He couldn't even grab for her, could barely let her lean over and give him the kiss on his cheek. If he gave in to it, he knew he'd never get out of the house, today. He would stay there, living in that breathtaking sorrow until her face changed and he was too exhausted to do anything else.

He closed his eyes to tear himself away, settled heavily behind the wheel of his "new" car – not quite a junker, but still fairly elderly. He loved these old models. They kicked and died as often as overworked mules, but he could fix them with his own two hands. No computer shit to take care of. He felt a certain kind of bond with them; they tended to wheeze as though they also had asthma.

He tried not to think about what he'd just said, but he'd been lying, of course. It _wasn't_ over. Every time he could get away, he anxiously threw himself back into the routine of cleaning up after his crimes, his sins. He was sure now that he could never be linked back to either Manfred's death or Paco Mendez', and, with Grace Mars' help, he'd managed to erase all traces of himself from her deceased husband's life. She'd been ridiculously willing to let Scott go into Ethan's house and clean up after himself. It was a sad little place, boxes unpacked, yard overgrown. If that man hadn't even been able to keep his house together, no wonder he hadn't been able to save his own son. Scott had been torn with sorrow, fury, as he wiped the place clean.

But those weren't the only ways it might not be over. Scott's exploded apartment was half-curse, half-blessing. He had a few cases he'd simply given up for dead after he'd lost all of his files on their backgrounds. On a positive note, the hideously burned body of the woman found two blocks away, the reporter he'd also given up for dead, couldn't even be determined to have been on his floor when the explosion happened. Denying any knowledge of her and accepting Blake's comforting hand on his shoulder had pretty much taken care of _that_.

But the arson teams were still working on his place. Still investigating. Very, very slowly. He wasn't even trying to claim the place hadn't been blown up, on purpose, just that he hadn't done it.

"I do a lot of adultery cases," he'd said. "You can imagine that I don't have a lot of fans. Some of the dickheads I find cheating – well, I wouldn't put it past them . . ." That would almost certainly take care of it, but it was still up in the air.

And it might not be over in . . . that other way, either. The way that itched deep in his brain. Because he'd only ever taken his victims in the fall. And it wouldn't be fall yet, not for a while.

And maybe, with no place to take them, he could manage to not take any more.

And maybe Lauren's sweet face could stay in his head long enough so he wouldn't need to.

Maybe.

He set off for Kramer's place in his choking car.

That was his real business. Kramer. The two men were locked together in mutual hatred, dependence, blackmail. Scott had made a Faustian deal with the one man who was able to cover up his murderous rampage through Kramer's mansion – Kramer himself. Kramer theoretically had all the power, knew enough to send Scott to prison for life, probably could have him killed with very little effort. But it was like Scott's potential for violence had him hypnotized. A cobra staring helplessly at a mongoose.

"How's the old man today?" Scott asked the awkward goon at the front door. Like all of them, the hireling was visibly afraid of him. Scott hadn't even bothered to learn most of their names; they almost all had the same sort of dreadful sameness, and mostly, did the same job, poorly.

The man shrugged, cautiously. "Same as always, really. Ebenezer Scrooge. Montgomery Burns."

That was an answer Scott actually liked, and he put the face in his mental catalog of people who he'd like to see not die. He worked his way into Kramer's office.

Kramer's fascination with him was always so shockingly transparent that Scott could feel himself despising the other man as soon as they were both occupying the same room. Kramer had power, had more power than Scott, even with all his corrupt connections, could ever dream of. But every emotion Kramer ever had screamed from his face as though he were a walking billboard. He needed men like Scott to be his face, to be a face that was able to lie, and threaten, and kill. Convincingly. The more Scott worked for Kramer, the more lies he told for his employer, the more arms he twisted without breaking a sweat, the more contempt he had for the weak old man who gave him those thick envelopes of cash.

"All right," Scott started. "What is it?

"I've got a social function to attend tonight. I need someone to be there beyond Todd." Scott checked that; Todd was a driver, and a very good one, but not a bodyguard by any means. "That's you," Kramer continued. "You should . . . change your shirt. And put on the black coat you've been given for these things. But I want you there."

"No." Scott tipped his head slightly back and forth on his thick neck. He wasn't willing to give up the date with Lauren. "Not tonight. That's why you have to give me warning. Won't be there."

Kramer's face tightened. "You can come tonight, or you can take Gordie on his trip out tomorrow afternoon."

Scott's voice immediately burst into a dangerously low register: "One rule when we started this, Kramer. I don't see Gordie. I don't help him with _any_ of the fucked-up stuff he does."

"You're right, Mr. Shelby." Kramer was almost purring. "One rule. You don't _have_ to go anywhere with Gordie. So, tonight?"

Every corner of Scott's eyes tightened. He'd just told Lauren he could support them both. He didn't just need the money, he needed Kramer to find him employable and not a huge liability. And Kramer was working that game against him. It was another one of their cobra-mongoose showoffs. He played the wild card: "Where is Gordie going?"

Kramer tried to show a poker face, instead looked broadly flummoxed: "I . . . I think he's probably . . ."

Scott had been working for him long enough to know that that pause probably didn't mean that Kramer didn't know, just that he didn't want to say, hadn't been prepared for the demand. Scott stared impassively at his employer.

". . . probably going to have some fun before it gets late."

Ah. Scott could parse that one easily: that meant "find some hookers before he starts clubbing." Probably a long string of them, both hookers and clubs. Scott might even have to tell a few of those whores that they'd better keep their mouths shut. And they'd almost certainly be crying, sometimes bleeding. It was an absolute shit job, and Kramer knew it. And Scott knew he knew it. But now Scott had tried to give himself the upper hand in such a way that meant he had to sound like he didn't care about taking it.

"Fine," Scott said. "I'll do that. Get Jared to cover for me, tonight. He blends better than I do, anyway. You know how I am. Bull in a china shop." He squared his shoulders to emphasize his presence. "Working with Gordie means I get a bonus."

Kramer flinched, as he almost always did when Scott teased him by mentioning his volatility. He was clearly unprepared for the offer. "Well," he stammered, "Fine. I don't know where he's going. Be back here by one P.M. tomorrow. It's not a very detailed job. You'll be driver."

Scott settled a little; he was going to hate the job, but he was satisfied that he was clearly bugging the hell out of Kramer. The old fart looked like he was still trying to choke down a tumbler full of thumbtacks.

"Got that place yet?" Scott asked.

Kramer scowled, admitted: "Yes. Registered to a dead man. Should be out of sight for years. Craig can give you the keys."

Scott lumbered to his feet. "I'll be back tomorrow, then. Just give me a car where I can fit behind the fucking steering wheel." He strode out.

He leaned heavily over the first goon he found, only about a third his size: "Who the fuck is Craig?" he asked.

"I –" the scrawny hireling had clearly been warned about Scott, looked frightened. "I just started. I think he's the guy with the office with the weird paintings."

Scott knew immediately what he meant. "Good job," he said. "You get to not be kicked in the nuts, today." He'd had no intention of doing such a thing, but increasing his legend gave him pleasure. The undersized muscle was visibly quivering even before Scott turned his face away from him.

Craig was Kramer's Secretary of the Interior, managed all of the hirings, firings, contractors. Never said anyone should be taken out, but would sometimes admit that someone's services were "disposable," if he was asked. Scott ignored the tiny Keith Haring lithographs on the man's walls as he walked in. It was easier that way, to pretend that the man secretly in charge of Kramer's household didn't have a bunch of unsettlingly cheerful – and vaguely faggy – images on his walls.

Not that Scott discriminated against fags. He'd shoot one of 'em in the head as soon as the next guy, if they deserved it or he was paid to. But only then. Let everyone live how they want, that was Scott's motto. Hookers, Mexicans, faggots, whatever. They'd get whatever they deserved in the long run, and that included questionably queer Craig. And Lauren. She was getting what she deserved, because she deserved far better than what she'd been having.

Craig spasmed as Scott shoved his way in, looked like a deer in headlights for a moment.

"You," Scott started, "Are supposed to give me keys to an apartment."

Craig sprang into life. "Yes. Yes! I've got them. Here." He fumbled a spare keyring onto the desk. "130 Market Street. One of them does the outside door, the other, the inside. Not sure which is which, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. From what I've been told of your . . . requirements, it should work." The little man remained perched uncertainly on the edge of his seat.

Scott examined the keys, wrapped them in his hand. He hadn't seen the place yet, but it never hurt to throw a little fear of god into anyone: "You never gave me these. You got that? We never had this conversation." He examined the other man's face carefully, which was already jerking at the corner of his mouth in an uncontrolled nervous tic. "You have no idea how many ways I can hurt you if you forget that. Craig."

Craig started nodding eagerly. "Never happened. Let me know if the landlord's a dick. Kramer's the only one on the lease, so you might not be able to get things fixed if they go to hell."

Scott was satisfied, lumbered out, and Craig spent another afternoon contemplating just how much he should quit this fucking well-paying job.

Outside, Scott stared at the keys in his palm. Didn't know if he was ready for them, yet. Didn't know if he needed them, yet. He'd go cruise by his old apartment, he decided, joke around with any of the construction workers there, see if any of his old pictures had been rescued. He missed them.

None, it turned out, had shown up.

But it wasn't a bad day, in total. He scrabbled up dinner from a diner and got the car to straggle its way home before they went out to the movie. Lauren had thoughtfully picked an action movie, and Scott loved the feeling of holding on to her in comfort when she jumped at the quick scares. Could tell she liked it, his holding her.

She grappled him so hard that night as they had sex that he felt bruised, though he knew no marks would probably show up – they hardly ever did for him. Just a thing. A lucky thing.

"Hey, babe," he rattled her sleepy ribcage a little after they were done. "Just so you know, I'm probably gonna be gone most of tomorrow."

"Mrasfpm. Scott." Lauren was clearly already half-asleep.

"Thanks for the movie."

They fell asleep, once again, draping each other.


End file.
